It appears that you may be blocking the ads, and we are fine with
it (read more here).
That said, it would really be awesome if you decided to whitelist our website or make a donation :)
You can also send us Bitcoins (1DEkropiHPWBmfJxogFaXQscfzhmdpTti4)!

1. Rotation

The build's core dynamic comes from the delicate balance of spending life and
depleting Corpses to fuel your damage dealer, Corpse LanceBlood Lance, or
replenishing life and consuming Corpses through Blood RushTransfusion
and DevourCannibalize . Blood Rush in general will be used
extensively to scout rift layouts and build up density before activating your
major cooldowns. To protect yourself as well as buff your damage, you will
debilitate the enemy packs you've rounded up with the Decrepify curse.
Last but not least, the massive Land of the Dead and Simulacrum
cooldowns open a period of brief omnipotence on the battlefield, which you will
use to dominate any major fight.

2. Skills, Runes and Passives

The solitary damage dealer of the build, Corpse Lance, launches a
powerful homing missile at the expense of consuming a Corpse — a precious
resource generated from fallen enemies and limited passive means
(discussed below). To play into the 6-piece bonus of the Trag'Oul set, you will
have to use the strongest, Life-spending Blood Lance rune, which you
further amplify with the dedicated Corpsewhisper Pauldrons legendary and
the skill-agnostic Reilena's Shadowhook and
Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang.

When it comes to Trag'Oul set builds, Blood Rush deserves a special
mention. Selection of a particular rune is not necessary; due to the 2-piece
bonus, you receive the benefits of the Potency toughness buff,
Transfusion healing, Molting Corpse generation, and
Metabolism double charge — all the while losing the drawbacks of
the skill from the Hemostasis rune. Playing around the
Transfusion healing is especially important, since in any decently
populated fight it can replenish a decent chunk of what you lost from
Blood Lances.

While Corpse Lance will not cost you Essence, you will have to pay for
it in fresh carcasses. Although they will be generated from felling your foes,
you will generally avoid fighting individual enemies and rely on an important
Corpse-generating cooldown instead. Land of the Dead is one of the
Necromancer's longest cooldowns, and with good reason — while
it is active, you can use Corpse skills at will for a massive spike of damage.
We recommend the Frozen Lands rune for its dependable crowd control
(despite the rune wording). Playstyle-wise, make sure to have a good pull of
enemies and/or lured elites, as well as an active Simulacrum to gain the
most out of this massive cooldown.

As mentioned above, you will be incorporating a second long cooldown
— Simulacrum — solely to buff up your damage. While the
clone copies your Secondary skills, notice that none of them are taken in this
build; the skill is simply taken for the short-term doubling of your Essence
pool via the Reservoir rune. Do your best to synchronize the activation
of Simulacrum and Land of the Dead, considering their matching
downtimes and similar active length.

Two more of your slots will be taken by utility skills. The mirror to
Corpse Lance, Devour, will consume Corpses for the Necromancer's
sustain; you will have to make a judgment call whether to spend Corpses on
damage, or replenishing the health you spent via the rune Cannibalize .
In practice however, you will be spamming Devour non-stop — except
during Land of the Dead, when you can make free use of both skills. This
ensures supreme damage AND toughness through its duration. Finalizing your
utility picks, Decrepify will bring a sizable damage reduction wall to
the build when coupled with the Dayntee's Binding belt. The rune
Borrowed Time will add a significant chunk of cooldown reduction to aid
your Land of the Dead resets. Make sure to constantly refresh and maximize
the number of cursed enemies on the battlefield.

This concludes the overview of the Active Skills, now let us look through
the Passives.

Stand Alone is a staple passive of non- or low-summoner builds. This
Trag'Oul Necro variant will take full advantage of the lack of permanent minions
on its side, and enjoys the full 100% armor bonus.

Adding an offense angle to the otherwise strictly defensive Decrepify,
Spreading Malediction offers an additive damage bonus against enemies
affected by the curse — a boon that scales excellently with density.

Blood is Power is the Necromancer's take on passives such as
Evocation and Beacon of Ytar — along with the significant
drawback of needing to lose your health reserve equivalent to trigger it.
Since it counts off pre-mitigation values however, this passive will trigger
from the very flow of gameplay (constant, high damage hits) in any meaningful
Greater Rift progression difficulty. With an overarching goal of reducing
Land of the Dead and Simulacrum downtimes, Blood is Power
finds a deserving place in your passive selection.

You have a degree of freedom in your final passive slot. Due to using
Reilena's Shadowhook as means of scaling your damage, our default
recommendation is Overwhelming Essence to expand your resource pool.
Alternatively, Final Service is the Necromancer's approach to cheat death
passives — a chance to evade a lethal outcome once every 60 seconds, along
with a 10% healing proc per minion consumed in the process.

About the Author

This build is presented to you by Deadset,
one of the very few professional Diablo 3 players.
Deadset regularly publishes video guides on
Youtube and
streams on Twitch, where you can
see how this and other builds play out in practice.